Similar packaging, less content: According to consumer advocates, manufacturers of consumer goods are currently resorting to hidden price increases. Inflation is sometimes far exceeded.
Consumer advocates report a new record of complaints about hidden price increases. Providers are increasingly making products more expensive by selling less content in largely familiar packaging, according to the Hamburg Consumer Center and Stiftung Warentest.
You gave several examples. The Suchard Express cocoa powder has shrunk from 500 to 400 grams, making it 25 percent more expensive. The shower gel Duschdas Sport has less content and is also more expensive – an increase of 22 percent.
The current “deceptive pack of the month” from the Hamburg consumer advice center, the mouthwash Listerine from Johnson & Johnson, also leads to a double price increase: It has become more expensive with less content and a higher price by more than a third.
price increases far above the rate of inflation
“Most of the examples we show far exceed the inflation rate,” explained Ina Bockholt from Stiftung Warentest. Inflation for groceries in July 2023 was eleven percent compared to the same month last year.
According to the Hamburg Consumer Center, the trend began as early as 2022: from the first to the second half of the year, the confirmed cases almost doubled. And: While the phenomenon used to be mainly seen in classic brands, discounter and organic brands are now more often affected. The content of a pack of Bio-Helix liquorice rolls from Ökovital has been reduced from 100 to 80 grams – at the same price. The consumer center leads in their “Sham List” numerous other examples.
Practice is not illegal, but opaque
As a rule, the practice of the manufacturers is not illegal, as the consumer advocates emphasized – but it is “extremely non-transparent”. The change in content is often hidden or veiled, sometimes it is also communicated, but as if it were an advantage: “New Size” is then called or “New Shape for Finer Enjoyment”.
Hidden price increases fall under the term shrinkflation. The term is made up of the English word “shrink” for shrink and inflation.